We follow mobile processors like crazy, and the one we’ve been most interested in is Nvidia’s upcoming Tegra 3, aka Kal-El. Many in the blogosphere had opined that their release would be delayed, and that certainly appeared to be the case as original dates were slipped past. Thankfully, Tegra 3 tablets are looking to be right around the corner.

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As we enter into October, we can all rest easy knowing that the next generation of mobile processors are closer than ever. We know that we can expect some incredible performance out of this upcoming hardware, with even greater battery savings than before.

Recently debuted at PT/Expo Comm China in Beijing, this delightful little tablet is packing some serious hardware under the hood. A 7 inch tablet made by ZTE, it’s dubbed the T98 (which were pretty sure is a code name – for now). Where it gets interesting is in asking why a top tier manufacturer like Samsung, Asus, or Motorola hasn’t gotten a chance to play with one of these bad boys first?

Either way, the processor inside is indeed the quad-core – no wait – quintuple core 1.5Ghz NVIDIA Tegra 3, slightly underclocked at 1.3Ghz per core, plus a seriously underclocked “companion core” that’s suited for reading loaded webpages, playing music and video, and a whole lot more. All of this is going to work in concert to provide an extremely responsive system, with substantially improved battery life.

These are the alleged battery savings that Tegra 3 will provide over Tegra 2, according to Nvidia

The tablet itself features a 7 inch screen, that has a resolution of 1280×800 display. Running Android 3.2 with 1GB of RAM and 16GB storage, it’s packing a 5MP rear camera and 2MP front camera. Plus, their’s also a modestly sized 4000mAh battery and 3G connectivity inside the 11.5mm thick tablet.

While there’s currently no official word on pricing or availability, the very fact that this device has been seen in the public means that others with the Tegra 3 SoC are very, very close to coming to market. If ZTE was able to get their hands on Tegra 3 and produce a tablet ready for market, it means that sizable orders of the SoC have already been shipped to the other major OEM’s. It’s looking like October and November are going to be incredible months for Android and for mobile in general.